From the Listening Post… 03/31/2010 (p.m.)

The Cyber 9/11 fallacy

This fallacy attempts to sells the idea of a pure cyber-based catastrophe (e.g., Cyber Shockwave) as something that we should all be worried about and, hopefully, be motivated to take action to prevent. Frankly, this approach does have its merits. In my experience, most of our leadership do not understand the scope of the problem. They see bogeymen where none exist, and miss the thousands of termites quietly eating away at their infrastructure. Still, if the imaginary bogeyman gets them to take action where the termites do not, I’m rooting for the bogeyman. Nevertheless, this is still a falacy that needs addressing because it perpetuates the myth that only large-scale attacks deserve our attention, when the reality is that cyber operations by adversary states and organized criminals are purposefully being conducted below our red line.